Social Media Poisoning?

It was only a matter of time, but it seems the growth of social media has given wave to a new batch of evil actions by spammers and their ilk.

Nathan points us to SEOMoz to learn more about what it means when you competitors try to ruin your name with poorly executed strategies and fake comments. The list of activities:

Here's some of the potential tactics that a black hat social marketer might engage in:

• Spamming the comments at major blogs like Techcrunch, GigaOm, MattCutts, etc. (BTW - I've heard that once you spam Techcrunch, Mr. Arrington will refuse to mention your site in the future)
• Authoring low quality posts at forums to make it seem as though the brand/website in question has hired forum spammers
• Emailing or even calling major bloggers, press outlets, etc. and trying to pitch a "shill-like" campaign that will receive obvious rejection (and leave a bad aftertaste)
• Sending lots of junky submissions to sites like Reddit, Digg, Netscape, etc. in order to "poison" the admins at those sites against a domain. This is most effective when combined with obvious manipulation (like 50 Digg accounts on the same IP address)
• Sending fake emails requesting paid links or link exchanges or even just begging for links in a very negative fashion to sites in the competitor's industry.

Durbin Media Group doesn't support these activities. But we do enjoy chasing these monkeys down and displaying them for the world to se.

What's been interesting is the question that major corporations have started asking me when we talk about a blogging project. They want to know if we'll be using fake comments. We don't, but it tells you that someone is out there selling "social media" like snake oil.

If you have a company that tries to use underhanded tactics to generate results on your behalf, be aware that you are responsible for everything they do in the eyes of the public. Just say no to such tactics. They don't work. No, really - they don't work.

Good social media creates buzz and relationships, and it's no harder than doing these black hat strategies. Focus on improving your online profile and relationships, and you'll reap more benefit than blackening the eye of your competitor - without the risk.